Twelve years before he would make history at Columbus (Ohio) Country Club, Bobby Nichols was a 16-year-old in a car loaded with four other teenagers on a joy ride. Their car went out of control at 100 miles per hour. Nichols was flung through the windshield and lay unconscious for 13 days with a broken pelvis, twisted back, collapsed lung and injured kidney. But he recovered; his spirits boosted by a letter from a player who had suffered a similar accident - Ben Hogan.

Nichols watched Hogan during the 46th PGA Championship, and was inspired. Nichols said a bargain-basement $5 putter he picked up a week earlier in a friend's golf shop was his key to victory. The putter proved warmer than the 93-degree temperatures. Nichols set a blistering pace, opening with a 6-under-par 64 that featured 30- and 40-foot putts over elephant mounds. He never looked back while capturing the Championship with a 9-under-par 271, which remains a Championship record today. The first wire-to-wire winner in the Championship's brief medal-play history, Nichols defeated Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus by three strokes. It was a record-breaking Championship for Palmer, too. He recorded rounds of 68-68-69-69, becoming the first player to have four rounds in the 60s in a major championship. Nichols' opening round remained a record until Raymond Floyd posted a 63 in 1982. Nichols took only 119 putts in 72 holes (a 29.7 average).